Researchers Achieve Fastest Ever Data Transmission At Blistering 1.125 Tbps

Researchers Achieve Fastest Ever Data Transmission At Blistering 1.125 Tbps


The result, achieved by scientists at University College London, uses a series of signal processing techniques to achieve the speed. But first, the lead researcher, Dr Robert Maher, puts the rate into context in a press release:

For comparison this is almost 50,000 times greater than the average speed of a UK broadband connection of 24 megabits per second… To give an example, the data rate we have achieved would allow the entire HD Game of Thrones series to be downloaded within one second.

The set-up uses fifteen different channels to send the data, each of which contain an optical signal of different wavelength. Each channel is separately modulated, then they’re all combined into a single signal — what the researchers refer to as a “super channel”. At the other end, a receiver with incredibly high bandwidth makes sense of it all. Perhaps it’s best for Maher to explain this bit, as he does in the press release:


The study will be published today in Scientific Reports.

There’s a small but, though: In these experiments, the team directly connected the transmitter to the receiver. For their next trick, they will have to link the two using optical fibres, which will cause the signal to become distorted as it travels down the line.

So, it will be a little while before your broadband whips through that Game of Thrones download as Maher promises.


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